Software Nuggets:
I've reviewed these winners and made them part of my Mac OS X configuration.Total packages: 136
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Wallsaver
A Free App for Playing Screensavers on Your Desktop
Freeware
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Reviewed Jan 05, 2008
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Update 1/5/08. Yes! Wallsaver started out a year ago as many promising software projects do... a little too buggy for regular use. But now, with the many updates made in the meantime, it's perfect for users who'd like to enjoy their screensavers and slideshows on the desktop rather than walking away just as they're starting. With Leopard, the joys are multiplied, since you can now run slideshows of any iPhoto album as a matter of routine, without any preparation in iPhoto. And Wallsaver can capture those as well as any other movies you happen to have ready for full-screen viewing as a screensaver. Apple should simply build this functionality into the OS... but until they do, Wallsaver is about the most lightweight (it's written in AppleScript), free option out there. The developer has added Sparkle to the software, so staying up with the latest version is a breeze and requires virtually no action on your part.
Version as tested: 1.3.6.
PeekIt
Geeks Gotta Love It! A Free Hex Editor... and Much More
Freeware
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Reviewed Oct 10, 2007
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Update 10/11/07. I actually made this decision a few months ago, but I'm running behind in posting stuff. Peekit is a great tool for taking a look inside binary files, especially those that aren't mach-o executables. It's relatively easy to extract or modify text in such files. I used this to figure out how to modify FastOrSlow's icon to be white instead of black for Crystal Clear. Horrible icon, but hey, not everyone's an artist. It's just that usually they aren't Mac users. :-)
Version as tested: 2.5.4.
PlistEdit Pro
Enlist A Pro To Tackle Your Plist Files
Freeware
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Reviewed Jul 08, 2007
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Update 10/17/06. The answer to my earlier question is "Yes," if what I meant was "which ones have been set" by the application's GUI Preferences settings. PlistEdit Pro is probably my favorite application for editing and working with application preferences, though it's taking second place in my toolbox to PrefSetter, since the latter is free and does most of what PlistEdit Pro does for $25. That's the price of freeware nowadays... possibly pissing a lot of talented developers off. But PrefSetter isn't the only decent freeware .plist editor out there. Not counting Apple's, which I mentioned before, there's also a good one from the developers of TinkerTool. It's a bit different, but still useful, tool called PrefEdit. So, as good as it is, PlistEdit Pro's price would have to be at least 50% lower to entice me to buy.
Update 3/30/07. Hold on a minute. I just discovered one or two things PlistEdit Pro can do that just might justify its somewhat high price tag, so I'm putting it back in the evaluation queue for awhile. The one function that was a requirement tonight is the abiliity to search and replace multiple values in a .plist file, something the free tools can't do. In confirming this, I discovered a host of other very cool features. Clearly, most people can make do fine with PrefSetter, but PlistEdit Pro may just be necessary once your needs get a little beyond the basics.
Update 7/8/07. I actually bought a license for this great software back in May, but I'm way behind in updating the software inventory on Mars. :-( As a devoted and very happy user of the free tool PrefSetter, I was delighted to find that PlistEdit Pro has some significant enhancements that I've found truly unique and useful.
I bought PlistEdit Pro after repeated occasions when this handy utility performed tasks that nothing else in my toolbox could touch, though I still think $25 is a bit steep for a plist editor. Nevertheless, PlistEdit Pro has so many powerful, pro-level features that it's a must-have for anyone who needs or wants to poke around in their application's plist files. Here's just one example of PlistEdit Pro's killer features: You can search not only across your system for plists by filename, but you can search for plists with keywords in their contents. But that's not all! You can even restrict the results to only hits where your keyword is in the file's key fields, or in its value fields.
My notes of the software's pros and cons follow:
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Version as tested: 1.3.
Photo Drop
Quickly Resize, Crop, Apply Image Effects for Free
Freeware
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Reviewed May 08, 2007
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All you do is drag an image from the Finder or your Desktop, activate Dashboard, and drop it in Photo Drop. From there, you can easily resize and reposition the image, or you can resize the widget and then enlarge or shrink the image. On the back is a selection for effects, backgrounds (including transparent), and for the image output format you desire. If you like, you can have Photo Drop do an image correction and/or add a watermark. Then flip the widget back over and click the "Done" button. Photo Drop instantly displays your new image with two quick choices to copy it to the clipboard or save it to your desktop. Alternatively, you can just drag it from the widget and into whatever application you need it.
A couple of other details about Photo Drop that makes it really useful for professionals are that it displays height and widgth, as well as a grid, as you resize it. So if you need an image of a certain size, you can get there without opening your regular image editor. In addition, you can paste the clipboard into Photo Drop. Finally, you can drag applications or folders to PhotoDrop to extract their icons. I made the accompanying image by
- Dropping QuickTime onto PhotoDrop,
- Adding the Aqua background and reflection effect,
- Resizing the image and widget to my liking and clicking Done.
- Next, I had PhotoDrop copy to the clipboard,
- Pasted the clipboard back into PhotoDrop,
- Changed the background to Black,
- Had PhotoDrop copy that image and pasted it back again.
- Next I used the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-4 to make a screen snapshot of the widget on the clipboard,
- Pasted that image into PhotoDrop,
- Resized the whole thing to exactly 200 pixels wide,
- Added a PushPin effect and a transparent background, and then
- Had PhotoDrop save that image to my Desktop.
Writing it down, that seems like a lot of steps, but I sure couldn't have done it any faster with any other tool I know about. Sweet, simple, and elegant: This is a Dashboard widget at its best, and it does things that, sad to say, other widget frameworks simply can't. But that's OK, you're already using the best one anyway. :-)
Version as tested: 0.5.4.
WindowDragon
Simply The Best Free Window Tricks
Freeware
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Reviewed Apr 30, 2007
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- WindowDragon is the only tool that lets me keep my left mouse button free, to keep the keyboard shortcut simple. You see, as my library of custom keyboard shortcuts has grown, the ability of my tiny brain to remember them all has shrunk. With WindowDragon, I can keep the shortcut to one key, and for me that tiny number is huge! WindowDragon can do this because it lets me use the right-hand mouse button instead of the left, thereby avoiding interfering with all the hundreds of other shortcuts that rely on the left. It definitely takes a little practice to automatically use the right mouse key for a drag function, but once learned, it's a blessing.
- WindowDragon is the only tool of all those I tested that could resize my QuartzClocks ⤴ windows even when their background was set to fully transparent. This is cool because my favorite QuartzClocks clock---the digital one---by default resizes with its background window. But if you make the window transparent, you can't resize it using the little widget in the lower right-hand corner. Ergo, you either live with a huge clock (since you can't change the font size), or you find a Window Trick somewhere. Lucky for me, I found one. :-)
- Because WindowDragon is a haxie, using Unsanity's APE framework, rather than a Cocoa plugin, it can work with older Carbon apps like the Finder, as well as newer Cocoa apps. Though some of the commercial products also can do this, none of the other free ones can.


Now, a major caveat for WindowDragon is that you have to first install the free APE framework. But the APE framework won't run on Leopard (yet), so WindowDragon, unfortunately, does me no good when I'm working on my Leopard build. :-( I haven't decided what I'm going to do about that yet, but it is a bit of a pain for now. Otherwise, I have never experienced any instability or other problems stemming from WindowDragon, and I've really enjoyed having it around... and knowing it didn't cost me a dime! :-)
Here are a few notes I took while testing WindowDragon.
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Version as tested: 1.1b2.
OCSmart Hacks
Add Major Smarts To Any Cocoa App
Freeware
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Reviewed Apr 28, 2007
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- the main menu can be popped up anyplace, anytime;
- any application menu or submenu can be torn-off and floated;
- windows can be resized by dragging any edge;
- windows can be moved by dragging from any point inside its frame (not just by its title);
- entering URL links into RTF(D) documents in TextEdit;
- saving any formatted text into HTML;
- even keeping a watch over the current keyboard and reporting when it changes;
Unfortunately, it's not free, and will only work in all Cocoa apps if you register it... but it's definitely worth a try!
Update 4/28/07. I finally broke down and bought a license for OCSH (as it's affectionately known by its developer) a couple of months ago, and it's become such an essential part of my system setup I recently installed it on my Leopard build. That said, OCSH is definitely not for the faint of heart. It's a geek's tool---made by a geek for geeks.
OCSmart Hacks is frustratingly buggy, probably because it hasn't been updated since shortly after Tiger was released in 2005. Nevertheless, it has a few killer features that I finally felt worthwhile to pay for. The software is a Cocoa InputManager application that adds several capabilities to any Cocoa apps it's running in. Most significantly:
- Ability to invoke the main menu with a keystroke anywhere on your monitor,
- Ability to "tear off" any menu or submenu, a very handy feature that saves time in reaching menu functions buried deep in an application hierarchy, and
- Ability to customize these features for each application, including turning itself off.
And the good news is that it works in Leopard just about the same as it does in Tiger. Before buying OCSH, you can demo all of its features by invoking them in the OCSmart Hacks standalone application.
OCSH offers many other features, plus numerous "hidden" ones for really advanced hackers, but several of them are now obsolete---for example, its HTML conversion tool and its ability to add hyperlinks in apps like TextEdit. One, which can be annoying if you don't turn it off, reflects the author's annoyance at Mac OS X's default behavior of opening a blank document when an application launches. Though this can be annoying, developers have largely overridden it on a case-by-case basis, so that you can turn the feature on and off within the app's preferences.
When I say that OCSH is buggy, I mean that it's caused conflicts with a dozen or so applications during the time I've used it. When this happens, you can disable OCSH within the application itself---if it's able to fully launch. If it crashes, and you determine OCSH is the cause, you can add a key to the app's preferences file that will disable OCSH (see the very thorough OCSH documentation for the instructions). The good news is that the cause of this bug may soon be history: The OCSH developer is currently testing an update that fixes a problem that could be causing the conflict. This new version will be available on the OCSH website as soon as testing is completed.

"Tear-Off" menus, by the way, are incredibly cool and useful. They were apparently a standard part of the NeXTStep user interface, and were passed along to OS X by way of its code genes. Apple has done nothing to advertise their existence, and only because a couple of apps like OCSH have enabled them do I even know they are possible. The cool thing---and a critical distinction between this and the "pop-up" main menu---is that tear-off menus are persistent. OCSH remembers which menus should be torn off for each app, and where you want them located on the screen. In addition, you can use a contextual menu command to tell any given menu that it should float above all other windows, or that it should once again "mix" with its other brothers and sisters. The main utility of "tear-off" menus is in providing quick access to deeply nested functions that otherwise require navigating through several hierarchical menus to reach. I use them in applications that don't present their main menu at all, because I've turned it off. A good example of this for me is Edgies ⤴, but I also use this in WriteRoom ⤴.

In my tests and use, I've found OCSH to be superior and more reliable for "popup menus" and "tear-off menus" than two freeware apps that are probably better known. I had used DejaMenu a lot before discovering OCSH... or rather, I had tried to use it. In my experience, DejaMenu simply doesn't work in many of the situations where I really need it---including Edgies, QuartzClocks ⤴, DropCopy, and other apps where I don't need a menubar. A lot of Mac users need a popup menu feature because they use multiple monitors, and don't want to have to navigate back to the "home" monitor to use the menu. I haven't tested OCSH under those conditions, but I assume it would work.
For "tear-off" menus, the only other tool I'm aware of is the open-source StepMenus. Again, I had tried to use StepMenus for its tear-off chops many times, but it's frustratingly buggy, and quite often fails to obey your instructions to stay quiet in apps from which you've excluded it. StepMenus is also fairly old code and doesn't appear to be "cared for" any longer. Still, if you want to get a flavor for what "tear-off" menus can do, StepMenus is a good place to start.
Here are a few other notes I've made on OCSH during testing and use.
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Version as tested: 2.0.
MondoMouse
Grants Your Mouse Magic Powers Over App Windows
Freeware
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Reviewed Apr 28, 2007
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Update 4/28/07. The comments I made about Zooom! ⤴ apply to MondoMouse as well. Even though I'm rejecting it for my personal use, however, I would very likely pay the additional $5 for MondoMouse instead of Zooom!, simply because I prefer its "float" style of window interaction rather than Zooom!'s click style.
A quick aside here, since that last statement makes no sense without a little context. In the world of what I call "Window Tricks" software, there are two basic styles of causing windows to resize and move with your mouse: One is like Zooom!, where you drag or resize a window by invoking a keyboard shortcut while you click and drag with your mouse. The other is used by MondoMouse and at least one other that I know of, where you drag or resize merely by invoking the shortcut and then dragging with your mouse---no mouse click is needed. It certainly seems more like "magic" to me, the I confess to being a sucker for this cool factor.
The only concern I have about MondoMouse is that in an earlier version I observed a couple incidents of runaway CPU usage, which caused me to force quit the software. I haven't fully tested the latest version against that problem, so you should do so if you consider purchasing MondoMouse. It's also the case that MondoMouse lacks some features that Zooom! has, and if those are important to you, it will be easy to select the less expensive---but equally capable---Zooom! product. Below is a summary of the notes I took on MondoMouse.
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Version as tested: 1.3.1
Zooom!
Another Utility To Enhance Window Handling
Freeware
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Reviewed Apr 28, 2007
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Update 4/28/07. Zooom! is really cool, but I've decided to chuck it for myself, as well as its close competitor, MondoMouse, in favor of some freeware that takes care of the main functionality and does so more satisfactorily for me. That said, Zooom! is a fine product that I can recommend without reservation. It has a broader range of functions than the more expensive MondoMouse ⤴, and its developer is responsive to suggestions, actively seeking to improve the product. Zooom! is also the only one of these tools that extends its powers to the difficult, non-standard Mac OS X products from Microsoft. For control freaks, Zooom!'s new Magnetics feature will be a dream come true. It lets you assign an invisible grid to your monitor, to which you can snap your windows as you move and resize them with Zooom! Unfortunately, you can't snap to the grid by using Mac OS X's built-in move and resize tools. Below is my summary of pros and cons.
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Version as tested: 1.2.

Update 6/18/06: Charlotte still has a few bugs... it seems to conflict with the AcidSearch plugin, but then so does the nightly WebKit browser I like to use. But all in all, I like the concept they're going for, which is to provide a consolidated search across several distinct content "buckets" on the web. You can get this effect at Google already, which presents buckets for "Web," "Images," "Groups," "News," "Froogle," and "Maps," thereby letting you reuse your search term in several different contexts. This isn't always that useful, but in Charlotte it's got the potential to be more useful than at Google. Charlotte's "buckets" are "Web," "News," "Images," "Books," "Blogs," and "Developer." At this point, Charlotte's buckets aren't as full as they presumably will be as more plugins are created for it, but it's still quite interesting to switch from, for example, "News," to "Blogs" with the same search term.
Charlotte is indeed a full-fledged web browser, with the basic functionality plus some serious eye candy. If you're a fan of Dashboard's "ripple" effect, rejoice! With Charlotte, you have two different kinds of page loads you can animate, choosing from about 8 different transition effects... some of which I haven't seen before (disintegrate, mod, and copy machine). I miss having a back button between the results list and my navigation from there, although I've found that Charlotte's "Switch View" button serves the same purpose (a sort of "snapback"). Unlike a normal browser, Charlotte has no menubar. Instead, you access "her" through the menu extra or via a keyboard shortcut (Command-Return or Command-Option-Return), which you can customize in the preferences.
Click on image above to see Charlotte in action!
Charlotte also supports auto-suggest, with a customizable timer, but I didn't have any luck getting it to work. You don't have access to your normal bookmarks. Instead, Charlotte assumes your Del.icio.us site is your bookmark repository, and adding a bookmark in Charlotte means adding it to Del.icio.us. That's fine with me, but if you haven't yet discovered the joys of social bookmarking, you might be taken aback by this. One little quirk is that if you have more tabs than will fit in the browser window, there's no way (that I could see) to get to the far-right ones. They're still there, but you have to clean out other tabs to reach them. Still, I'm reviewing this at version 1.01, and it's pretty damn good for a free, newborn software package of this complexity.
All in all, I'll be glad to keep Charlotte in my menubar!

Update 4/14/07. Finally! A new version of Charlotte was released today, and it's even greater than I remembered. I haven't been using it regularly because I was worried the project was abandoned, but this new release gives me hope it's not. Everything I said before is still true about Charlotte, and I thoroughly enjoy using it, even as a full-fledged browser alternative. Now, if more plugins get written for it, Charlotte could be a truly awesome web search platform for Mac users. (Not that they don't already have any... but Charlotte's just so cool!)
Version as tested: 1.1.
FlashMount
Save Time Loading Disk Images on Mac OS X
Freeware
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Reviewed Apr 06, 2007
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Update: I installed the software and changed my .dmg files to use it by default when called. Unfortunately, it turned out that FlashMount couldn't handle .dmg files that require a license approval before being mounted. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was, because the symptom was just inaction when I tried to mount some .dmg files. This kind of software certainly doesn't save you any time if you have to open Get Info and change handlers back and forth, or use the "Open with" contextual menu. So, I removed FlashMount and went back to Apple's default DiskImage Mounter tool.
Version as tested: 1.5.
Update 2/14/07. Just goes to show you that it pays to keep an open mind and "never say never." Recently I started seeing quirky behavior in Mounty, the free tool that does the same trick as FlashMount. I had recommended Mounty last fall after finding that it worked great and avoided the problem I had originally noted in FlashMount (see above). So, I thought I'd head back to the FlashMount developer and see if he had any updates... and sure enough, he did... two in fact! By version 1.5.2, FlashMount not only avoids the "EULA screen" problem it had originally, it does Mounty one better by simply accepting the EULA for you! Of course, you need to understand what it's doing, but basically it just saves you a click (I mean, who reads EULA's, anyway? unless they're from Microsoft...) In my quick testing tonight, FlashMount worked great. I followed the readme file's suggestion and turned FlashMount into a background application. This lets FlashMount do its thing without yanking you out of the Finder. More later after I've run with it for a few days...
Update 4/6/07. Yes, indeed! FlashMount works flawlessly in the latest version, handling the EULA interrupt screen flawlessly. I highly recommend this freeware if you want to shave a few seconds off the time it takes to load disk images on your Mac.
Version as tested: 1.5.2.
AppHack
Incredibly Useful and Versatile App Developer Freeware
Freeware
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Reviewed Mar 29, 2007
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Besides opening up applications and peeking around, AppHack can also perform some theming duties... for example, it can replace icon sets. And here's a developer who clearly doesn't mind having his own medicine eaten: AppHack is distributed not only as freeware, but as open-source freeware, so you can take a look at its code to see how it does what it does. Great stuff... highly recommended for your inner (or even outer) geek!
Version as tested: 1.1.
IFreeMem
Simple Tool To Free Up Inactive Memory
Freeware
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Reviewed Mar 24, 2007
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Update 3/25/07. You know, this little utility actually works... and more than that, it's actually useful! Even though my PowerMac has 4Gb of RAM, I am surprised at how often I'm running out of memory... at least, out of free memory. So I put iFreeMem to the test and ran it several times over the course of the 15-day trial. I was so impressed after the first test that I almost went ahead and paid my $8 right then and there. Instead, I was curious to see how repeatable iFreeMem's stunning feat of memory freedom would prove to be.

The results are summarized in the accompanying chart, which shows "before" and "after" data for five tests, focusing on the two components of RAM I was most interested in---Free RAM and Inactive RAM. As you can see, although some tests freed up more free memory than others, in each case I gained a significant amount of free RAM---averaging 900Mb. The change in inactive RAM was also quite variable, but even more dramatic: On average I gained 1.25Gb of RAM after running iFreeMem!
In each case, there would be roughly the same amount of "wired" RAM afterwards and a significant pickup in "active" RAM, which on average climbed 400Mb. Put it all together, and each run of iFreeMem gave me a huge boost in RAM "overhead," so I could continue working without needing to restart, which in the past was the only way to really bring these figures down dramatically. (I've found that logging out and back in isn't nearly as effective, unfortunately.) Note that the screenshots from which the test data is taken were made immediately before running iFreeMem and immediately afterwards. While iFreeMem was running, I didn't open or close any application or document on my Mac.

iFreeMem takes about a minute to run, during which it gobbles up all your free and inactive RAM, which can be a bit disconcerting the first time you do it. Shortly, though, the iFreeMem pie charts shift, and suddenly you're lookin' good again! The small QuickTime movie I've added to the article is speeded up, but gives you a good idea of how iFreeMem looks when it's doing its thing.
This software has several other tricks besides this one, and the author is very careful to explain the minuses as well as the pluses to this memory "defrag" process. All I can say is, if you have 8 bucks and a need to stretch your RAM time, go get yourself a copy of this little miracle. So far, I've seen nothing in the course of 3 weeks or so using it that is in the least bit alarming. (I do always close large open documents and applications like iPhoto that keep your work in memory first, just in case.)
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Version as tested: 1.1.1.
Graffiti
What Can't Windows Users Do? Write on the Back of Windows!
Freeware
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Reviewed Mar 16, 2007
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Update 3/16/07. Well, seeing as how it's been almost 3 years since Graffiti was updated, and that it was left at a state well below 1.0 in its numbering system, it's not surprising perhaps that Graffiti is more of a cool curiosity today than anything you can really use. That said, I'm recommending it because it's a great demonstration of the power of Cocoa to change the abilities of Mac applications built on its framework. The first time you see Graffiti flipping your System Preferences window (or any other one) around, letting you write on its back, your jaw kind of drops. Be prepared to spend a few minutes flipping it back and forth just to see if what you wrote is actually still there. :-) Graffiti comes preset with F7 as the flipper shortcut, but in its preferences, you can set that and several other shortcut actions to whatever you'd like.
I usually keep Graffiti out of production, though, because I was experiencing some system problems related to SIMBL last year, and WebKit in particular isn't fond of SIMBL plugins. In addition, the Graffiti code is apparently not using the correct interface to SIMBL, which you'll discover if you peek into the Console log while running it:
2007-03-24 19:06:45.094 Console[22034] The plugin /Users/llscotts/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/Graffiti.bundle (org.ianhenderson.Graffiti) is using a deprecated interface to SIMBL. Please contact the appropriate developer (not the SIMBL author) and refer them to http://culater.net/wiki/moin.cgi/CocoaReverseEngineering
Still, there's nothing to be afraid of in Graffiti... it's a simple parlor trick that's too cool to ignore. And when I whipped Graffiti out of hiding tonight and put it back in the SIMBL plugins folder, it worked like a charm. Keep this one around to be reminded of the power of Cocoa InputManagers, and revive it now and then to show a Windows skeptic a little something extra you can do with the Mac... if you want to!
Here are a few notes I took on Graffiti:
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Version as tested: 0.4.
MagiCal
Menubar Calendar/Clock Features Tear-Off Calendars
Freeware
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Reviewed Mar 15, 2007
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Update 3/15/07. Well, that didn't take long, really. The developer of the cool new menubar calendar/clock application MagiCal has been churning out updates at least once a week since January. Some time in February, all of my requirements were met, and I've actually been using MagiCal instead of MenuCalendarClock (always hated that name... don't you?). It's still not as powerful or flexible, but actually its signature trick---being able to tear a calendar off the menubar and drag it wherever---beats MCC in some ways. In fact, you can drag as many copies of MagiCal off the menubar as you need to, each set to a different month!
p:After I had pointed out MagiCal's early problem with CPU usage, the developer promptly attended to it, and now MagiCal's a very well-behaved member of my menubar. Its CPU usage is comparable to MCC and to the now-abandoned freeware wClock, which had similar functionality. After all that, I don't absolutely need MagiCal, since I get my time and date from QuartzClocks, but I have found it convenient to grab a monthly calendar from the menubar, making it the fastest way to get there outside of keeping iCal on the desktop all the time (not really PractiCal, I don't guess).Beware the recent entrant to this space, however... at least for now. MyMenuDate is just bad, weak software at this point, though it does have a nice icon. :-) It costs $5.00 on sale, but isn't nearly as nice and flexible as MagiCal, which costs $0.00.
Version as tested: 1.0.8r2
Springy
A New Standard for Mac Zip File Utilities
Freeware
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Reviewed Mar 14, 2007
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Update 3/14/07. Springy is by far the best Mac OS X utility for previewing, extracting, and creating zip files that I've yet seen. And it was only a year ago that I looked around and found virtually nothing. First came BetterZip, which was buggy and seemed slow. BetterZip got better with new versions, but ultimately I found it was just too slow, and I didn't think it was worth paying for. Then I found Zipeg, a new freeware tool that I still think is terrific, particularly since it's free. However, as I noted above, Zipeg is a bit un-Mac-like and doesn't have a search function.
Then Springy came along just recently, and I was immediately impressed. Springy's interface emulates the Finder, so Mac users will feel immediately at home. It even has the same view options as the Finder! Springy is fast like Zipeg but has the terrific search bar of BetterZip, so already it's better than both.
But to top it all off, Springy has a feature that Context menu fanatics like me really go nuts over: Springy provides a context menu application that's always available when you're browsing the Finder. You just select the files you want to archive and go to Springy's contextual menu item. There, you can select what kind of archive you want to make and boom! (as Steve would say), Springy will make you a zip file and launch Springy for you. Alternatively, you can access the contextual menu to set Springy's preferences or check for updates.
But that's not all! If you select an archive file in the Finder, you'll see its name right below the Springy contextual menu item. Select the name, and wait a moment, and Springy will let you navigate the file tree inside that Zip file... all without opening Springy! If you select a file or folder while browsing the archive, Springy will extract them for you. Springy's preferences window gives you some control over how Springy extracts, and what the contextual menu does.

If you're looking for a zip-file manager and you have a little money to spend, you can't do better today on the Mac than Springy. As you'll see by browsing the table of pros and cons below, it's not perfect (what is?), but it'll surely delight you with its speed and pure Mac OS X elegance.
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Version as tested: 1.2.2.
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